Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

Hugh Pickens writes "Although today the stigma of lifting passages can haunt media professionals forever, Revolutionary War Historian Todd Andrlik writes that 250 years ago stealing another reporter's work without credit was an acceptable form of journalism. In fact, plagiarism was a practice that helped unite the colonies and win the Revolutionary War. 'Without professional writing staffs of journalists or correspondents, eighteenth-century newspaper printers relied heavily on an intercolonial newspaper exchange system to fill their pages,' writes Andrlik. 'Printers often copied entire paragraphs or columns directly from other newspapers and frequently without attribution. As a result, identical news reports often appeared in multiple papers throughout America. This news-swapping technique, and resulting plagiarism, helped spread the ideas of liberty and uphold the colonists' resistance to British Parliament.' For example, an eyewitness account of the Boston Tea Party by 'An Impartial Observer' was first authored for the December 20, 1773, Boston Gazette, but was soon reprinted without edit or attribution in other New England newspapers. News of the Boston Massacre, Battle of Lexington and Concord, the treason of Benedict Arnold and practically every major event of the American Revolution circulated among the colonies much the same way. 'Thanks in no small part to this plagiarism, newspaper printers fanned the flames of rebellion and helped colonists realize the conflict was closer to home than perhaps they wanted to believe.'"

You could write an article about how murder helped win the American revolution. True, but relevant?

Yes, relevant.It means that you cannot interpret the rules literally and similarly in every case. You just have to use your head. There are times when murder can be justified because you protect a greater good.

From the point of view of those who watched their parents die, or their kids blown up, or starved to death by American bombs/blockades then 9/11 event was a "good" thing. To them it was the equivalent of what the Hiroshima bombing was for our 1940s-era ancestors. A moment of triumph & revenge for the deaths that happened years earlier.

It was replaced with an even equally ugly building that doesn't even have the mitigating factor of having been designed to achieve superlative height. It will achieve one superlative, however. We are nearing the completion of the largest ever monument to capitulation....

Except the point being argued is that the lack of attribution made the article feel more localized. The engagement of people not in Boston and Philadelphia by making it feel like it was their war too was a major reason for the success of the War. The argument here is about how much of a role unattributed news played a role in bringing the War to the locals.

Except the point being argued is that the lack of attribution made the article feel more localized. The engagement of people not in Boston and Philadelphia by making it feel like it was their war too was a major reason for the success of the War. The argument here is about how much of a role unattributed news played a role in bringing the War to the locals.

Feel more localized when reporting incidents two or 6 states (colonies) away? Really?

As often as not "correspondents" in those days were exactly that, people who wrote LETTERS tovarious news papers as a way of making a living. They would have dozens of little newspaperssigned up for a few cents per letter, and would include clippings (often of their own stories) fromthe newspapers where they were located in their mailings. Often these were reportersfor local papers who expanded their own income by servin

But it's the American Revolution! This insightful revelation shows that the Founding Fathers not only approved plagiarism, but that it was vitally important to their cause! Obviously, our modern politics are far out of line, having been corrupted by this silly "evolution of society" thing. This should be a clear message for Ron Paul and other politicians who actually care about the Founding Fathers' ideals that all copyright should be abandoned because it didn't matter in 1776.

It's perfectly clear that journalists back then had far higher ethical standards than modern journalists, because they wrote about the American Revolution! That immediately clears any doubt of their honesty, right? They wouldn't have copied something just because they could get away with it, but rather they did so out of a pure desire to spread the gospel of democracy.

Next week, we'll see the full story on how cholera was an effective means of population control, how slavery protected American companies from labor unions, and how an expensive and slow postal system encouraged only meaningful correspondence.

If this is meant to be a "Why is this on Slashdot"- Well, it's like this: The only way we can know that older societies had different values is if we can read about it. Ok?

Anyway, it's quite interesting that plagiarism is apparently the one thing you can do to get the punishment of shunning [wikipedia.org]. Shunning was the practice of removing an individual from the good graces or even contact of the rest of a given society (whether that be a church, a village, or whatever).

1. Recess appointments are constitutional. Article II section 2. Even George Washington had a recess appointment.2 The dream act hasn't been put in place by anyone. The president is just doing what every president since Reagan's Amnesty has done. He just made it a political football by by stating so publicly to score political points with a constituent group.3. No insurer should be allowed to deny reasonable medical care based upon religious ideology if they are participating in government programs. This is

1. Recess appointments are constitutional. Article II section 2. Even George Washington had a recess appointment.2 The dream act hasn't been put in place by anyone. The president is just doing what every president since Reagan's Amnesty has done. He just made it a political football by by stating so publicly to score political points with a constituent group.3. No insurer should be allowed to deny reasonable medical care based upon religious ideology if they are participating in government programs. This is also in the constitution.

Go back and read it again, this time for comprehension. I'll even boldface the important part:

* Making unconstitutional recess appointments by declaring congress in recess when it was notArticle I, Section 4 says "Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings..." and "Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days...." Please explain to the class how those clauses give the President the power to determine whether the Senate

But if you don't believe that birth control is moral then nobody is forcing you to use it. Actually, it seems to me they are not allowing the insurance companies to decide this....but the individuals. Unless I am missing something I am as curious as the GP.

It's called stability. The Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution in such a way that it didn't need to be changed every few years while at the same allowing for the option to change it as needed.

Our values haven't changed that much. We still want our freedom from religion as well as being able to practice or not without the government telling us otherwise (well, the ones that know history at least), we still want the government to keep out of our bedroom (at least those that understand the Constitution was a limitation on governmental powers, unlike Roberts and Scalia), we still want our free speech, we still want equality for all people (except for those who think how a person is born limits those rights), and so on.

I'll take a system which is stable over the centuries rather than having to worry if the next guy who gets in office will scrap everything and declare themselves dictator for life (or in my case, benevolent dictator until such time as the people can get their heads out of their asses).

Our values haven't changed that much. We still want our freedom from religion as well as being able to practice or not without the government telling us otherwise (well, the ones that know history at least), we still want the government to keep out of our bedroom (at least those that understand the Constitution was a limitation on governmental powers, unlike Roberts and Scalia), we still want our free speech, we still want equality for all people (except for those who think how a person is born limits those

If the Founding Fathers had insisted on universal suffrage and no slavery, there would not be a United States of America for them to have been Founding Fathers of. You are projecting your values and complete inflexibility on issues you consider important on to people trying to form a cohesive federation of States with very different interests.

You are projecting your values and complete inflexibility on issues you consider important on to people trying to form a cohesive federation of States with very different interests.

No, I'm just saying that many of the Founding Fathers were wrong about some things. I understand that they did what they had to do in order to form a union. Then again, the very fact that they had to compromise on the slavery issue proves that some of them felt so strongly about their right to own slaves that losing it was a deal-breaker.

I have no respect for men who want freedom from tyranny for themselves, and yet are willing to fight for their right to keep other men in chains.

It's not that I find their actions unreasonable when considered in context. It's that we're told that the Constitution written by these men is the pinnacle of everything a governing document should be, and that (more or less) it is right about everything.

We've learned quite a bit in the past 240ish years... is it so unreasonable to think that we could write a better Constitution now?

Why do we believe that a bunch of slave owners knew more about equality, freedom, and governance than modern men?

This is a good point, And a difficult one to discuss, at least in the US. At that time (and for a shamefully long time after it) the common belief was that black people couldn't take care of themselves. They were viewed either as livestock or like a (working) pet. Today, this thought is reprehensible...but it was a commonly held belief then. The GGP makes a good point too. Nobody would have agreed to it if they had demanded womens rights and an end to slavery. It just wouldn't have happened.

This is a good point, And a difficult one to discuss, at least in the US. At that time (and for a shamefully long time after it) the common belief was that black people couldn't take care of themselves. They were viewed either as livestock or like a (working) pet. Today, this thought is reprehensible...but it was a commonly held belief then.

Exactly. The modern view is that nobody can take care of himself, and needs a government nanny to look after him.

It doesn't make sense to make statements like "Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own. This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the author of nature, because necessary for his own sustenance. " (Thomas Jefferson) while also owning slaves.

or blacks or irresponsible groups like women or landless men

How can you call that logical? You're broadly saying that women and landless men are irresponsible, and shouldn't be ab

What is Plagiarism? Many people think of plagiarism as copying another's work, or borrowing someone else's original ideas. But terms like "copying" and "borrowing" can disguise the seriousness of the offense: According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, to "plagiarize" means to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own to use (another's production) without crediting the source to commit literary theft to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing sou

BTW, self defense is a natural right, our Constitution simply codifies it. Calling the loss of your rights "evolving" is just Orwellian Newspeak. There are a few ex-despots displaced by the Arab Spring who certainly wish they had more effective gun control.

The shocking thing is that you guys still carry on with a constitution written at that time although your values have changed and large part of it are now so obsolete that it requires NRA money to keep it in place.

Our constitution has also been changed many times in the last two centuries. In fact, the bill of rights was the first thing to be changed about it. Later changes outlawed slavery, gave the vote to women, outlawed alcohol and then legalized it again, and so on.

So, you believe, that if it was not for the NRA, a Constitutional Amendment overriding the Second Amendment would have been passed? I haven't even seen anybody propose such an Amendment. Or, do you believe that if it wasn't for the NRA, Congress and the Courts would be ignoring the Second Amendment? If the latter, what is the point of having a Constitution which limits the power of government?
As to "modern countries" changing their laws every couple of years, are you referring to Germany, which less than 7

Fixing society is a difficult problem that will take time. Until then, it is important to be armed so that you not powerless to resist those who want society to become more broken and will victimize you in order to do it.

I'm not against ALL forms of gun regulation. Reasonable regulation targeted directly at making gun owners more responsible is acceptable. But bans? And arbitrary ignorance based reactionary bullshit? Nope.

And on the plus side, even if society is fixed to the point where having a gun self de

The constitution was ratified and came into force in 1789 while the bill of rights was added afterwards in 1791. Note also the bill of rights was only applicable to the federal government which meant it did not apply to the governments of the States.

As a compromise to get the South to sign the document, while at the same time diminishing the Southerners ability to control the House and Executive simply because they bought/bred more slaves?

It goes to show how flawed the Founding Fathers were; they thought of their slaves as people when it came to being represented, but not people when deciding on their representation. Oh, and you know that whole thing about being free and equal? That only applied to your if you were white (and had a penis).

How can there possibly be any doubt that the fallibility of the Founding Fathers? Even THEY knew they would get some things wrong... that's why you can amend the Constitution.

Sigh.. when will this retarded "the Founding Fathers weren't perfect, therefore we can change the Constitution however we want" meme die already? The only thing that has (or should have) bearing on whether or not the Constitution can be 'amended' is whether the change violates individual rights or protects individual rights (i.e. is immoral, or rationally morally sound). Strangely the people spreading this meme seem to be pretty much universally doing so in order to try build new rights violations into the

Again, calling something bullshit does not make it so, no matter how loudly you say it.

No, but the fact that it's bullshit does make it bullshit. Were many of the Founding Fathers against slavery? Sure. Were many of them slave owners who were prepared to abandon the revolution if they had to give up their slaves? Also true.

Public school education huh? I'm sorry.

What? I don't even know how to respond to that sort of ridiculous statement. Sure, I went to public school. I also spent two years going to a private school in France, and have degrees from Stanford and the United State Naval Academy. What's your point?

We're talking about a bunch of land speculators who revolted when their King wanted to treat all his subjects equally. Or perhaps you don't consider native Americans to be people?The constitution like all good compromises was disliked by most all the signers and it was expected it would be replaced by a better document within a couple of decades.

You are judging these men using the standards of today, this is ignorant.

Yet we are told that we should accept their Constitution as if it were infallible by the standards of today. I'm merely pointing out that these men were wrong about some things (womens rights, slavery, how they treated Native Americans), so maybe they were wrong about (or simply did not consider) others as well (such as health-care being provided by the government).

If the founders did not believe women had the right to vote, why should we care about their opinion on modern issues such as health-care? Cl

so it's hypocritical for people who are alive now to act in a manner opposite of people who are no longer alive? Tell me more about how this works, I'd like to start blaming the Mongols for not keeping up with the ways of Attilla.

As others have pointed out, any and all businesses that depend on copyright in the US at one time or another (mostly in their beginnings but some even now) depend upon some form of IP infringement. The movie industry moved from the east coast to the west in order to escape Edison and his patents over the motion picture, for example.

As others have pointed out, any and all businesses that depend on copyright in the US at one time or another (mostly in their beginnings but some even now) depend upon some form of IP infringement. The movie industry moved from the east coast to the west in order to escape Edison and his patents over the motion picture, for example.

The USA changes the rules to maximize business. Right now, extreme copyright enforcement and radical extensions will make more money for US businesses. As evidence in favor of this, I would suggest that (a) businesses think they know how to maximize their own profits better than outsiders (wise-crowds not withstanding), and (b) the US government does what businesses want, consistently and with vigor. If we want copyright laws changed, those are the important points to argue against. The fact that business

Not much changed. These days newspapers across the world (especially English-language papers) have identical articles too. They just take it from "the wire" and reprint it without any editing usually. I literally see the same articles in a local Hong Kong paper that I see later linked from/. so some US online paper.

The only difference is that nowadays this exchange goes a lot faster, and that papers usually pay for the privilege.

Not much changed. These days newspapers across the world (especially English-language papers) have identical articles too. They just take it from "the wire" and reprint it without any editing usually. I literally see the same articles in a local Hong Kong paper that I see later linked from/. so some US online paper.

The only difference is that nowadays this exchange goes a lot faster, and that papers usually pay for the privilege.

Well, it's a bit different these days - in that newspapers getting syndicated

Plagiarism is not copyright infringement. They are two entirely different things. You can plagiarise something that is in the public domain, for example, which has no copyright.

Some of the online definitions of the word claim that to plagiarise, you must have stolen or used without the author's authority. Others (and I) disagree - it's perfectly possible to plagiarise something that is in the public domain which is written anonymously. You can't steal something you have every right to use. Plagiarism h

The practise was known as 'boilerplate'. Smaller newspapers would buy printing plates from larger newspapers and only add their own title block and a few local stories. That doesn't mean plagiarism though - it was a sale.

This is a bit like saying "The Apollo program could have achieved the same results by providing the astronauts with laptop computers".

Journalism as you know it today -- field correspondents! -- hadn't been invented yet. At the time, newspapers were either gentlemen sending letters around or a summary of whatever people were saying. The idea of professional fact gatherers was a fairly recent development, and one hopes, not a transitional one to whatever we do now.

You don't even have to go that far- the author stipulates that plagarism was what helped unite the nation, but plagarism is both copying and failing to attribute the work. It seems copying was the actual contributing factor- the newspapers could have cited the original source and news would get around just fine.

There's a lot to be said here about the ends you're trying to achieve. Getting the news of the Boston Massacre out was more important than who makes the money selling the paper. There's also the consideration that republication happened in markets that weren't competing with the original source newspaper. In a time when horse and buggy was the primary mode of transportation, newspapers in other cities reprinting the stories was just how the story was distributed. There was no way to reach everyone, and telling how atrocious the British were being was everyone's goal.

Because all of the XVIII century newspaper editors were spiritual being who disregarded money. Is that your point?

Also, I fail to see how a line saying "This news is republished from such other newspaper", or paying a fee to the original writer would have hindered the spread of the news (less important news could have been omitted, but not the headlines).

Yes, they had another set of ethics so in their eyes it was not bad. But to say that, without those ethics the news would have not spread that far is a big

No, my point is that if you're spreading the local gossip and a rival newspaper is printing the same thing, you're going to want to be paid for that, mostly to dissuade the rival from using your stories. I'm saying that the story presented non-rival newspapers repeating stories that the rulers of the country are committing these atrocities, and I could understand where, in cases like that, you might not hunt down every newspaper that's reprinting your article.

There's a lot to be said here about the ends you're trying to achieve. Getting the news of the Boston Massacre out was more important than who makes the money selling the paper. There's also the consideration that republication happened in markets that weren't competing with the original source newspaper. In a time when horse and buggy was the primary mode of transportation, newspapers in other cities reprinting the stories was just how the story was distributed. There was no way to reach everyone, and telling how atrocious the British were being was everyone's goal.

Citing the original author would not slow the news, cause papers not to sell, etc. Plagiarism contributed nothing.

I don't doubt that plagiarism was the order of the day(even in academia, the idea that plagiarism is a bad thing hardly goes back to the beginning); but I would be curious to know why...

The incentive behind copying things is pretty obvious; but mere copying isn't plagiarism. It takes lack of attribution to get to that level, and the incentive to not attribute isn't nearly as obvious. If I'm a newspaper editor in Baltimore, reprinting a story from a Boston paper, why wouldn't I include "As lately printed in

I think one other factor of the time that is being lost in our discussion is that printing a paper was a laborious and time consuming task back then, and the attribution information may have been lost to the second or third had recipients further down in the colonies. There was no cut and paste, unless you note the comment above with regards to smaller papers buying boilerplate from a larger paper. I think of this not as plagiarism so much as a primitive precursor to the AP.

Who's to say there was not an agreements in place that allowed the sharing of newspaper articles without attributing to the source, it may be that as long as no one put their name atop the article that it was acceptable with the other papers. Writing anything anti-colonial may not have been attributed to the writer to protect the writer from imprisonment or the gallows. Many of the major newspapers owners did know each other and were sympathetic to the cause so a simple arrangement is a very likely scenario

This was not plagiarism. This is how things were done. Calling it plagiarism is demeaning to the efforts made to spread information back then. They didn't have the mass media that we have today. There weren't even analogous syndication services like AP and Reuters to syndicate columns and act as clearing houses for news articles. The societal infrastructure for syndication simply wasn't there. There were no methods for collecting royalties on articles except being paid through the local paper. Stuff got repeated and nobody got their panties in a twist. It's different today, because there are mechanisms in place for attribution and for people to get fairly paid.

Plagiarism is the *wrongful* appropriation of literary content. Back then it wasn't wrongful. Ergo, TFA calling it plagiarism is intellectually dishonest, at best.

So now plagiarism is okay, and a good thing? But,..., don't we have all these laws against plagiarizing someone else's work? That means it's bad.... But, our founding fathers plagiarized, so that means it's good to.... Hmm... , let me think about this,....,....,.....***BOOM!!!*** (head explodes)

...I will put my modern values into the past and judge people based on today's criteria story. If it was accepted practice back then you should STFU. You should also not promote it as a model of how to do things today. You can't go back to that exact time and place.

I can't count the number of times I've copied some code from a web site and disassembled it to learn how it works. I've never just flat-out cut and pasted code without permission to go on a production site, but that initial copy to learn things would no doubt be considered "plagiarism" (or at the very least copyright infringement) by today's hyper-legal norms.

The free flow of information benefits everyone, but that benefit rarely comes all at once from a single mind. More often, it takes lots of increme

I believe all the reports were attributed to he Sam Pseudonym and none of the other papers had writers claiming the work as their own. Moreover, it appears there was same sharing arrangement between most if not all of the papers involved.

Zakaria had one lightly modified paragraph about policy history that made it into his work without attribution. One graf. CNN has dug through his body of work (with outside help from the conservative blogs, which hate Zakaria), found no other examples of poor work, and reinstated him.

Blair invented unnamed sources, reported from cities he did not even visit, and a host of other things under the category of "making shit up" about breaking news that included the work he was m